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CFP - The S Word: Stanislavsky and the Digital (London, 2026)

Date

The S Word: Stanislavsky and the Digital
Annual Symposium
Organised by The Stanislavsky Research Centre (Leeds/Malta)
in partnership with The School of Arts and Creative Industries, University of East London

📅 17–20 June 2026 (the last day will be online)
📍 University of East London, Stratford, E15 4LZ, London

Keynote Presentation: Vakhtangov in the MoCap Studio by Tom Linden-McCarron and Robin Berry

Jean Benedetti Lecture TBC

Co-Conveners:

Dr Evi Stamatiou (University of East London), Zuzana Jurechová (Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, DAMU) and Prof. Paul Fryer (Stanislavsky Research Centre)

Call for Papers and Presentations

The School of Arts and Creative Industries at the University of East London is pleased to launch its partnership with The Stanislavsky Research Centre through The S Word - Stanislavsky and the Digital. As digital technologies increasingly influence how performance is created, taught, and experienced, we invite scholars, artists, media practitioners, technologists, and educators to consider how Stanislavsky’s legacy engages with the technological turn of the twenty-first century.

From virtual and augmented reality, motion capture, and AI-assisted dramaturgy to online collaboration, immersive storytelling, and screen-based performance, this symposium asks how digital media reshape the Stanislavskian principles of truth, presence, embodiment, and emotion.

We welcome submissions from teachers, artists, filmmakers, game designers, digital scenographers, immersive media practitioners, and researchers whose work intersects with or reinterprets Stanislavskian principles. What does it mean to train truthfully when the actor’s tools include data, sensors, or an avatar? How might the System evolve within virtual classrooms, hybrid rehearsal spaces, or motion capture studios?

The S Word is an international, collaborative research project, created by Bella Merlin and Paul Fryer, now celebrating its 10th year. Building on The S Word’s mission to bridge historical and contemporary practice, this symposium invites dialogue between Stanislavsky’s foundational ideas and current digital innovation, exploring how emerging technologies and pedagogies may transform creativity, performance, and actor training.

Topics of Interest Include (but are not limited to):

  • Stanislavsky and the Digital: intersections with VR, AR, motion capture, AI, gaming, digital twins, and online performance environments
  • Digital storytelling and performance: Stanislavskian principles in screen acting, immersive media, and interactive narrative design
  • Reappraising the System: how digital experimentation extends or challenges truth, embodiment, affect, and the psychophysical
  • Teaching Stanislavsky online: immersive pedagogy, remote collaboration, simulation-based learning for acting and media
  • Digital scenography and hybrid performance: projection mapping, live-streaming, mixed-reality theatre, and the actor–technology interface
  • Archiving and re-imagining Stanislavsky: digital humanities approaches to preservation, documentation, reconstruction, and analysis
  • Stanislavsky and the post-human performer: presence, identity, and affect in technologically mediated or avatar-based performance
  • Interdisciplinary perspectives: psychology, cognitive science, data-driven creativity, and digital aesthetics in relation to Stanislavsky’s legacy
  • Ethics, wellbeing, and inclusion in digital practice: emotional safety, intimacy coordination, accessibility, and representation in virtual space
  • Provocations: speculative, experimental, or practice-based re-imaginings of Stanislavsky for the digital performer, filmmaker, or educator

Formats

  • Individual Papers (20 minutes)
  • Practice-as-Research Presentations (20 minutes)
  • Practical Workshops (40 minutes)
  • Panels (60 minutes, minimum 3 contributors)

Submission Details

Please submit:

  • A proposal of no more than 300 words
  • A short biographical note
  • Whether you wish to present in person or online on the final day, and your time zone so we can schedule accordingly.

Send your proposal to:

📧 Dr Evi Stamatiou – [email protected]
📧 Zuzana Jurechová – [email protected]
📧 Prof. Paul Fryer – [email protected]

🗓 Deadline for submissions: Monday 16th February, 2026.

Selected contributions will be considered for the edited volume:
📘 Stanislavsky and the Digital (Routledge, 2027).

Registration opens Spring 2026.